[QUOTE="fidosim"][QUOTE="calvinsora"]
Traditions are meant to change if they do not conform to what is right within the rudiments of equality and civility. Marriage exists, as an institution, both inside and outside of religion, and it bears with it certain stigmas and rights that civil union doesn't have. Outside of the fact that actual "gender rules" are nonsensical in definition, you don't bring up that the same person that may confuse a friendly relationship with a gay one could then go on to misunderstand a relationship between a male friend and a female friend. Or are the only relationships we have with the opposite sex sexual in nature? Whether you want to go into debates about what evidence does and doesn't support the innate nature of homosexuality, the fact of the matter is that many nations (not mine, thankfully) are clinging to an archaic ideal of what love "should be", not what it has the potential to be. And while people are actively defending what they consider to be the "right way" while denying themselves of anything else that they feel uncomfortable with, we cannot hope to ever develop any other way of thought but "families are made for propagation, anything else is unnatural". That's not to me an ideal society.
Teenaged
You argue that "traditionalists" are wrong in defending what "they consider to be the 'right way'", yet you insist that marriage practices conform to "what is right within the rudiments of equality and civility", in the interest of creating what is, according to you, "an ideal society." Why should we trust your conception of what makes an "ideal society" over centuries of tradition within most of the developed societies of the world? Tradition shouldn't be blindly used to perpetuate itself, which is what folks think the anti-gay marriage crowd is doing, but the institutions we have developed and survived for a reason. But traditional marriage isnt the optimal option.All the pros you mentioned for it are hardly guaranteed. They only exist in some ideal definition of it.
Just because it supposedly tries to achieve some positive things doesnt mean that it does actually achieve them, and thus you cant peddle it as the best option simply based on what it intends to achieve.
If someone has to explain so simple concepts to you then you must be really thick, or a very persistent troll. Choose one.
Also explain to me how something achieving longevity means it will always be relevant. Swords were used for centuries. We dont use them anymore, save for memorabilia/collections and re-enactments of any kind.
I am not arguing that traditions cannot and do not change. My first post in this thread said that I didn't think marriage should become unmoored from its traditional purpose, which implies that it is indeed capable of becoming unmoored.What I am arguing is that change ought to come from natural processes and be based on pragmatic reasoning, and not someone's whimsical ideas about what an "ideal society" should look like.
I believe (yes, my opinion) that traditional marriage, as it is practiced in the west and in most other societies and has been for a long time without significant changes as to its fundamental purpose, ought to remain the way it is, because it is the best arrangement for organizing the production and rearing of children, and the nuclear family (although not all families are "nuclear" in the traditional sense) is still, by and large, the fundamental building-block of a person's life, and the most basic social institution.
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